I've been searching for months for information on this and haven't gotten anywhere. So, I guess I'm just going to lay it all out there and see what I can find out.
I bred a female this spring. She went through the normal motions of being bred and ovulating and so on. She shed for her pre-lay shed and, in the proper amount of time, began laying mid/late June. She laid 2 fertile eggs and 1 slug and quit...I tried to leave her be as much as possible, so I didn't figure anything out in time to take her to a vet (by the time I realized something was wrong, she was obviously past the contraction phase and was done). She never acted egg bound and has slowly, over the past several months, passed 2 more slugs. The problem is that she still has lumps towards the middle of her body. She eats, poops/passes urates, and sheds fine. She just has apparently retained some slugs and is either resorbing them or something else.
The female came to me from an unknowledgeable source so I don't know her age or anything like that. I can say that she is a chubby snake, but when I bred her, she was in good condition.
My question(s) are basically, what the heck?
I would've expected an egg bound snake to have had health issues and/or died by now. So, I have to think that it's different than typical egg binding. However, I wouldn't expect this to happen either. Since the lumps never moved towards the end of her body and it was obviously past the standard amount of time for laying when I realized what was happening, she never had a chance to be "induced." And this far past the time, I can't imagine that being a possibility.
Is there anything I can do? Is she doomed to die eventually? Will she resorb them (or is she doing that now?) I heard of one instance of someone's female retaining eggs and he could still feel the lumps years later. Will I ever be able to breed her again? I'm leaning towards no, but I don't know so I'm asking.
Please don't judge me or throw out a bunch of negative responses. If I'd thought I'd had the time to help her, I would have. But I keep waiting for her to get ill or weak or die and it's not happening so I'm now looking for other answers.
I bred a female this spring. She went through the normal motions of being bred and ovulating and so on. She shed for her pre-lay shed and, in the proper amount of time, began laying mid/late June. She laid 2 fertile eggs and 1 slug and quit...I tried to leave her be as much as possible, so I didn't figure anything out in time to take her to a vet (by the time I realized something was wrong, she was obviously past the contraction phase and was done). She never acted egg bound and has slowly, over the past several months, passed 2 more slugs. The problem is that she still has lumps towards the middle of her body. She eats, poops/passes urates, and sheds fine. She just has apparently retained some slugs and is either resorbing them or something else.
The female came to me from an unknowledgeable source so I don't know her age or anything like that. I can say that she is a chubby snake, but when I bred her, she was in good condition.
My question(s) are basically, what the heck?
I would've expected an egg bound snake to have had health issues and/or died by now. So, I have to think that it's different than typical egg binding. However, I wouldn't expect this to happen either. Since the lumps never moved towards the end of her body and it was obviously past the standard amount of time for laying when I realized what was happening, she never had a chance to be "induced." And this far past the time, I can't imagine that being a possibility.
Is there anything I can do? Is she doomed to die eventually? Will she resorb them (or is she doing that now?) I heard of one instance of someone's female retaining eggs and he could still feel the lumps years later. Will I ever be able to breed her again? I'm leaning towards no, but I don't know so I'm asking.
Please don't judge me or throw out a bunch of negative responses. If I'd thought I'd had the time to help her, I would have. But I keep waiting for her to get ill or weak or die and it's not happening so I'm now looking for other answers.
...Curious here...how long did she go before becoming ill and needing to be put down? I've been trying to find a reference on time frames and unfortunately, I haven't found a lot of solid information on it.